So coming from someone that has played an extensive amount of current gen Madden 25 on the 360 I wanted to post some thoughts and impressions that separates next gen (I was skeptical of next gen prior to playing):

Note: Play on All-Madden with default sliders for this quick play now half.

1) Running is much more realistic and seems more fluid and life-like. The running game is a huge improvement.

2) Man coverage appears to be fixed where your slot was always open on the out route.

3) DB's seem smarter so if you run consecutive curls with your 1 and 2 WR the db will actually jump the route and pick it off. Also stop and go routes are more effective if you run a few curls.

4) The pocket forming is very nice compared to current gen.

5) It is much more realistic getting pressure, you can actually blitz 7 and get pressure every time as opposed to the blitzing lb getting hung up behind a tackle blocking a defensive player already.

6) The graphics are actually a noticeable improvement (couldn't tell from streams). The pictures displayed early were of replays and you can actually see that level of detail if you zoom in. The game play looks a little better than current gen but I wouldn't say it's a lot better but there is definitely a noticeable improvement.

7) Defense is actually competent now. I was hardly ever stopped on current gen and on next gen I put up 7 in a half as the Eagles vs the Titans.

I feel the same about everything Brian said. This game is a noticeable improvement from current gen. Graphics look better, the grass really does look good (it makes a bigger difference than I thought). The game definitely feels different too, in a good way.

I am liking the DB improvements so far, verts is still $ but curls not as much.

Games in the dome don't look as good as the outside games that I saw before on twitch. Dome lighting doesn't compare.

A good slider set its very needed, whether or not theres foot planting there is no weight to the player, to often they change direction at full speed with no cutting.

The line interaction is okay but needs a lot of work. I don't know it was my team but the DE don't get much up field pressure. The DE doesn't really rush that outside shoulder, they just rush straight, so I find if I line up in DE the computer makes a nice pocket but when I am on offense the CPU DE rushes at the Tackles chest and it keeps it a flats pocket with no depth.

Its a small thing, but I find the headsets actually make the coach look weird. Oh a big thing I did like improved depth charts which is to be expected but you can never be certain.

The crowds sound much better, that being said it doesn't add much cause it doesn't seem to have an impact on the game. Just noise.
Ive only played one game play no, all pro no sliders or any options changed, was too east but sliders can fix it hopefully

Cons:
*very similar presentation-style/commentary/animations as CG
*sidelines still "somewhat" react (but not as I had hoped)
*TD celebrations are still "canned" (wish everything was real-time)
*Some of the next-gen players' faces look worse than in current gen (wtf)

All in all, if you are warranted the $10 update and are currently enjoying CG Madden (like myself), you'll love the polished look.

Is it an entirely brand new game? No...

I'm having an absolute BLAST with this game regardless - I just love sports games - PERIOD!

It's VERY similar to CG, but I can't wait for next year to see what EA can do next.

Pros
CPU run defense is almost perfect. Night and day to ps3. On ps3 I could average 5ypc with my eyes closed. Not on next gen. I averaged right at 3 and that was a combination of getting stuffed 90% of the time a breaking two decent runs.
Second string back also got a good amount of carries despite me not touching auto subs

All madden difficulty has teeth. Blitzes are no joke they force you to either get the ball out quickly or take a sack. This combined with the run defense actually gave me a challenge, which did not happen on ps3. I either had to make the sliders so imbalanced it was cheesy or basically try not to pull away on ps3. Not so in this game. I actually had to work for the win.

Graphics do look much sharper than ps3. It's not a wow factor by any means but very noticeable

Foot planting and ball carrier movement is very very well done. Twitchy ball carrier was gone and I played on default speed, which I always played on slow to negate as much off this as possible on ps3.

Secondary play. Does not feel cheap at all. Curls are well defended by players breaking on the ball, not simply standing next to the receiver and waiting to make a play on the ball. Safeties played phenomenally breaking when necessary and resulted in one very natural looking pick

Online/dline play looked great. No more patty cake. Defenders actually made moves to break off blocks.

They fixed the player and play of the game. Both were accurate to what happened on the field

Post play camera angles are much improved. Nothing phenomenal but I would say they are where they should have been to begin with. Looks much more natural than before.

Player celebrations. No more player isolated by themselves in the opposite end zone. Celebrations had good camera angles that were almost cinematic but had other players around the celebrating player.

Cons
Living worlds. The sidelines had more graphical detail but ea basically cheated the system here to make them look interactive. Players do back away from the play as it's coming toward the sidelines but that's where it ends. I did not see any interaction with the ball carrier and in fact the game cut away very rapidly when a player in play went more than one foot out of bounds. It is very jarring to see and looks very unnatural. Foundation for the future but the awkward cut away does more harm than good this year.
Stadium noise. Again this feels like ea cheating the system. It feels like all they did was amp up stadium sounds and add the occasional situation specific reaction. No crowd swells. I intentionally threw a bomb to aj green to see how the fans would react. A 40 yard completion into the red zone yielded no swell and simply got applause upon completion.

Qb accuracy. Both the CPU and human qb at default are way way too accurate. Sliders will probably help this but Ben went 28/34 for 350 and dalton went 26/30 for 300. The qb accuracy issue is augmented by the receivers catching anything that comes near them.

Human blitz. I had 8 sacks 3 form my le, 4 from my fs and 1 from my mlb. Will need to be tweaked with sliders.

CPU late game clock management. I was up 23-20 steelers drove down to my 18 and had a timeout left, threw a short pass to the left flat and was tackled in bounds with 5 seconds left and ran a hurry up to spike the ball and snapped it with one second left and the clock expired.

In the end I was set on keeping the shrink wrap on it and returning it after seeing the streams yesterday. Seeing the debate today made me think what the heck, I'll give it a try and try to give some insight to others that may be on the fence. Is it a next gen title, in my opinion no. Does it play a much better and challenging game than ps3, absolutely. I am glad I decided to open it because I think that the improvements, especially they CPU run defense are solid enough that this game will provide me some enjoyment. But again if you are looking for a true next gen experience then I really don't think this is for you. If you kind of enjoyed the ps3 version but never found it a challenge, which I know many one here were in that boat, then you owe it to yourself to give this one a go because I think you will be satisfied enough.

First game. First quarter network is down on psn everyone is logging on at once my guess.

First impression, let me say it is the little things, dumped it outto my rb in flat he was on the sideline as I threw it I braced for the typical madden out of bounds unaware bs. To my surprise he tiptoes turns up field and gains me eight. The game does what I tell it to very responsive.

Oh yeah went quickstart Cheifs vs Rams in KC game is an upgrade. Haters hate but it is an upgrade intelligence wise for sure.

Only got to play about a half of a game, but my first impressions are very good ones. I enjoyed the player sense on the DB's. It was a great challenge and I'll have to stay sharp. The PS4 integration (screenshots and streaming) makes it worthwhile to me. The game also looked great on my TV and I'll be taking a LOT of screenshots. Also love the DS4 controller. Overall, it feels like I have much more control over the players. Pass rush definitely had a presence, and it was fun to step up into the pocket, even though I was playing with Seneca Wallace. Thumbs up from what I played. I'll be playing much more tomorrow.

Only got to play about a half of a game, but my first impressions are very good ones. I enjoyed the player sense on the DB's. It was a great challenge and I'll have to stay sharp. The PS4 integration (screenshots and streaming) makes it worthwhile to me. The game also looked great on my TV and I'll be taking a LOT of screenshots. Also love the DS4 controller. Overall, it feels like I have much more control over the players. Pass rush definitely had a presence, and it was fun to step up into the pocket, even though I was playing with Seneca Wallace. Thumbs up from what I played. I'll be playing much more tomorrow.

Aware is right I was making pre play adjustments on D and accidentaly dove on the snap. My safety recognized it and immediatly began to move to cover.

I think this happens because you can play the game while it is being loaded to your hard drive. I had the same problem, then end of the first quarter the load to HD was complete and the game is silky smooth!

I've been as critical of what was shown before release as anyone, and maybe my expectations were so low anyway, but I played 2 games last night and really liked it. First off, a note about presentation that almost brought a tear to my eye. My first game I played as GB in Lambeau, I purposefully started the game at 4:15 to see if the sky changed color by the end of the game. Sadly, though the shadows moved, the sky never changed. I was bummed, my next game I played as the Redskins at home, and noticed you could have a 6:30 start time, this time, by mid second quarter the lights came on, and the lighting changed pretty dramatically, and by the end of the game, the fricken sky was almost black! The lighting toward the end of the game was simply the best I have ever seen in a football game, it was insane actually! It had that golden hue to it, you guys that love football know exactly what I'm talking about, A small thing yes, but one I have been waiting for for a long time and am so glad is finally present now.

Gameplay wise, line play is absolutely improved, I felt like I could move around and step up in the pocket when needed. Best of all, much like real life, the pocket doesn't form perfectly every play, it's kinda like a box of chocolates if ya know what I mean, it is fluid, and I like that.
It seems to me that when rushing the Qb, momentum plays a factor, if you jump the snap you have an advantage over the tackle, I have beaten the T to the Qb without being touched a few times with Matthews and Orakpo, and when you do engage with them, moving the sticks feels meaningful, not just like you are imprisoned in an animation. Also I have seen a bunch of different pass rush animations, I bull rushed one time and got the tackle on his heels and walked him right back into the pocket and collapsed it. Another time with Nick Perry, he rushed upfield and did a kind of shimmy left and right 3 or 4 times before taking the outside angle to the Qb, and engaged perfectly to the outside shoulder of the right tackle. Rushing outside is more fun than inside, but u can collapse from inside as well.

Secondary wise, playing all-pro I seemed to be in position to pick off passes a little more than I would like, but overall I see marked improvement in CPU pass completion %, I.e. a normal amount of errant and incomplete passes by the computer. I pressured Bree's once and he threw over the middle and absolutely nobody was there, Simms even commented on it. Another nice thing I saw, Garcon went into the one arm catch animation, and as he brought it into his body he just lost the ball and dropped it, it was nice to see actually, looked very real.

True-step is going to take me awhile to get used to, you do need to slow a bit to juke better. Need more games to comment fully on it. One thing I do like, when you run the ball past the line of scrimmage, the camera zooms in on you, I personally like it.

Again, need more time to analyze, but I think punt returns are improved. Might be even better if I play on slow, I'll have to try later today.

Lets see, graphics wise it isn't even a comparison, next gen blows cg out of the water, I was worried a bit after the twitch streams, don't be, anybody that says these games are identical is either lying or blind, play an outside game, clear, with a 6:30 start time and tell me it looks like cg after the game ends.

Replays are 100x better in ng, it's not even close, good angles, good playback speed, nice to have back.

Cons:

Cutscenes suck, still. Too many head coach shots, too many panning crowd shots. I'm sure the devs realize this, but real time is the only way to go. I had a pick six with Rambo, hit x button at the ten and show boated with the arms out flying like a jet left and right into the endzone, and in real time, he spiked the ball! It looked great, but then, after spiking the ball and having it go flying away, they show the cutscene of my guy standing on the ball with his arms folded, it just kinda kills the immersion.

I had a few weird bugs, A cool aspect to me is if a player really gets smashed, they get hurt. Rodgers went down after trying to throw a pass as he went out of bounds. He got hurt, so Graham Harrell (old rosters) came in. Then Harrell got hurt, so B.J. Coleman came in (third stringer, art imitating life I guess) after a bit, we get the option to bring back or keep out the injured player as we all know. I opted to leave Coleman in and keep Harrell out. A few plays later, as Simms is commenting about how Harrell wont be back, Harrell is magically in at Qb again. Weird

One more, on a screen to M Lynch, he got a first down running alongside the sidelines, and McCarthy threw a challenge flag, without me opting to do so, I don't know if the touchpad accidentally did something or what, but it seemed random and a mistake, there was nothing to challenge and I didn't call for it

Can't find an option to save replays like cg, think it has been removed in ng.

Commentary is a small improvement, think I heard a few more players called by name, but not by much, we've heard most of it

Again, this is only 2 full games, didn't mess with cfm, simmed stats, didn't even check to see if assisted tackles have been fixed, just talking about how it looks and feels basically, but to me, it passes the initial smell test. The game looks better and plays better, enough to satisfy everybody, probably not. I'm glad I got it, and would encourage anybody able to upgrade for $10 that can, to do so. This all makes me even more angry that EA put an embargo on the review, they didn't need to and they pissed a lot of people off by doing it. If this team stays together, we could have the exact game we want in 2 years. Looking forward to reading others impressions, and getting more of my own.

They're fine. I actually prefer an always connected experience.
I'd really prefer an offline way to play, but its not a bother.
I don't really like them, and am more reluctant to buy a game because of it.
I won't buy them. I want my games offline.